Over dinner the other night, my mother told me of an obituary she’d read in Newsday some time ago, about a woman who had died, having “lost her battle with depression”. Her husband reiterated in the article about it: “People say she committed suicide… I say that she died of depression.” We both agreed that this was a brave choice of words – describing depression as an illness that can be fought… and that can be fatal. These terms and this perception of depression should set the standard in discussions of mental illness.
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“The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.” – Buddha
How often have you responded truthfully to questions like, “How’s it going?” or “How are you feeling?” And how often do you ask those questions, expecting an honest answer?
So why do we feel the need to lie?
The impending question of “why” pressures us to validate our feelings. It assumes that we are victims of circumstance: that our emotions are simply responses to external stimuli.
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This is sometimes the case. We feel happy, sad, angry, or frightened for a reason. But perhaps this cause-and-effect perspective of human emotions is limiting. And perhaps it does not happen that way as often as we’d like to believe.
This linear way of viewing emotion assumes that an event occurs first, and an emotional reaction follows. But consider how often you have felt something first, and, upon rumination, attributed the emotion to a past or future situation. How often have you found yourself in a certain mood, and then spent the day fixated on finding the reason for that mood? Now, think about how else you could have spent that time. Instead of exploring all the possible reasons you have to feel sad, anxious, or irritable, you might have taken actions to improve your mood.
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One of the major hang-ups I experienced when planning this blog was how open I would have to be about my personal life. It seems that no matter how many celebrities, authors, and artists open up about their battles with mental illnesses and mood disorders, the negative stereotypes persist.
Miley Cyrus recently discussed the issue: “So many people look at [my depresson] as me being ungrateful, but that is not it–I can’t help it.”
I recall a point in Prozac Nation where Elizabeth Wurtzel expresses her guilt in being depressed without logical cause. I wish I had my copy of that book here in Texas, but I seem to have left it back home. I wish I could show you the care with which I placed sticky notes on the passages I could relate to or pages where the diction and syntax perfectly reflected the struggles I shared with the author. I wish I could show you the difference between the width of the binding and that of the corners after my meticulous post-it note documentations.
Although, it occurs to me now, that sharing such things with you may open me up to a world of criticism and hostility reminiscent of what Wurtzel herself has endured.
Yes, Elizabeth Wurtzel may come off self-indulgent, ungrateful, or whiny. And yes, the very theory upon which the use of Prozac in depression treatment was based has come into question (perhaps more on this later). But, reading Prozac Nation at age 16, after years of inexplicable sadness, I was comforted by Wurtzel’s ability to put my experiences into words. I started to realize: my depression is not part of me. I am not my depression. My depression is a thing. A tangible, unpredictable, formidable combatant that I can fight. Over time, I have come to accept that depression is even more than a battle; it’s a war. And I can survive it; I can win it.
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The biological causes of my nemesis have been debated. In fact, my personal illness has always been extremely resistant to pharmaceutical treatments. However, I cannot think of any combination of environmental causes of my depression, and I do not care to.
The “nature vs. nurture” debate is ongoing, and perhaps it will never be solved. How can we ever separate our minds from either source? Until humans can either escape our bodies or our world entirely, we may never fully know which dictates our mysterious psychological functions.
Regardless, we certainly know more about the human brain than ever before. We have evidence revealing the significance of structures, such as the amygdala, and chemical neurotransmitters, such as serotonin, and the roles they play in human emotion and expression.
The human brain is an aspect of science as mystical and elusive as the whole universe. As humans, our ability to investigate such entities is limited by knowledge and technology. Researchers must accept a constant possibility of error and acknowledge the distance between our abundance of supporting evidence and our lack of indisputable proof. And again, I realize I could go more in depth here, but perhaps that is subject matter for a future post. The purpose of this article is really advisory, not informative or opinionated. No matter what causes mental illnesses, there is no doubt that they are debilitating, dangerous, and sometimes fatal.
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“It is not the brains that matter most, but that which guides them — the character, the heart, generous qualities, progressive ideas.” – Fyodor Dostoevsky
An amazing trait of humanity is our curiosity in evaluating and examining ourselves. Our ability to be introspective, to override our instinct with logic and/or compassion, and to search so relentlessly for meaning and purpose in life is extraordinary. We are often trying to live up to mottos such as, “Live and let live” or “Live like there is no tomorrow” or “No one cares if you’re miserable so you might as well be happy”.
While these sentiments are inspiring, they imply that we are able to just live in the moment happily without a second thought. Unless you have had a lobotomy, I don’t see how this is possible. You will never be able to “just keep on keeping on” without a care or a doubt. Life is bumpy, so if you are managing along smoothly, you can’t possibly be moving forward. Emotion, whether influenced by nature, nurture, or nothing at all, will eventually strike.
And you will be faced with the question of “why”.
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My interest in psychology has led me to countless books, movies, and classes exploring the subject. I remember learning about Freud’s theories, which largely attributed psychological disruptions to unconscious activity and childhood experiences. His methods suggested that a cure for my depression relied on discovering the hidden meanings behind my thoughts, behaviors, and dreams. My mind was an intricate puzzle that needed to be opened and explored.
Although these ideas are fascinating and poetic, I quickly concluded that they would never solve my problem. In fact, I have told my boyfriend on several occasions that the worst thing to ask me when I express a feeling is, “why”.
I have both asked myself this and tried to answer it for others most of my life. I have invented stories or exaggerated details to justify my feelings of depression and anxiety.
That is part of what I believe Elizabeth Wurtzel hoped to communicate while sharing her story: the feeling that there must be a reason or a purpose for all these feelings. I have also felt guilty and selfish for feeling so so sad – when life has provided me so much to be happy about. I was convinced that I needed an excuse for my feelings – a pretext for my illness.
Now, doesn’t that sound ridiculous? Does a diabetic need something to be diabetic about? Does a blind person need to explain why he is blind? Do we need to discuss why we can’t just “get over” breast cancer?
Why, then, must we constantly blame ourselves and make excuses for symptoms of mental illnesses? Why should I be afraid to admit I have depression, for fear of having to explain “why”?
I finally decided I would make this blog, and I would be as open as I wanted to be. I am tired of being ashamed, tired of making excuses, and tired of wasting time self-analyzing and sulking when I could be actively fighting off the symptoms of depression – which is an illness, without a doubt.
I happen to agree with Miley Cyrus, and many others hoping to extinguish stigmatization of mental illnesses, that keeping them a secret is not the answer. Hiding, lying, and making excuses for depression only serves to preserve the taboos, contribute to the ignorance, and encourage those who call it fake or selfish and believe we should “just get over it”.
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“I start to think there really is no cure for depression, that happiness is an ongoing battle, and I wonder if it isn’t one I’ll have to fight for as long as I live. I wonder if it’s worth it.” – Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation
Whether you have depression or not, you have probably experienced unprompted emotions. Haven’t you ever woken up in a bad mood? Or tried to excuse a mistake you made in an emotionally charged moment?
My point is that we must rid ourselves of the notion that feelings are not valid without cause. A big step toward my own mental wellness was acknowledging my extreme and/or unwarranted moods as symptoms of illnesses. In other words, I have learned that the best way to pull myself out of a depressive episode or panic attack is to view it objectively, rather than as a piece of me. When a war opponent attacks, we don’t search our history to find out what we did to deserve it, we fight back. That’s how I fight depression: ruthlessly, and one battle at a time.
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“Feelings are just visitors. Let them come and go.”
The next time you have a negative emotion – sadness, anger, anxiety, whatever – remember that you do not have to validate your feelings. Feelings happen. They come and go, and no feeling is final. You can sit around and count the reasons you might feel sad, or you can get up and do something that makes you happy. And if someone tells you how he or she feels, try asking, “Do you want to talk about it?” instead of “Why?” Your feelings are valid and natural; do not try to justify them.
You are not a victim of circumstance, and you are not a victim of biology. You are not the sum total of your experiences, hormones, memories, or neurons. Do not allow yourself to be a victim of emotion.
Make a list – mentally or on paper – of resources you can turn to for happiness. When you are feeling down, use those as tools – as weapons. Those feelings are not you, and you do not deserve them.
Living with Life 